Sheldon Taylor's Souls of Black Notes

  Michael Jackson has long dominated GOAT talk. Current opinions suggest otherwise, citing Beyoncé and Chris Brown's career durability as justification to supplant the King of Pop's long-standing reign.  It's a conversational coup that deserves to be toppled.  In a rare moment of self-celebration, Jackson encapsulated his career in a 2001Vibe Magazine piece: "Its a rarity. I had number one records in 1969 and '70. I entered the charts at number one in 2001. I don't think any other artist has had that kind of range." Seven years later, Jackson was dead at 50: eighteen  days shy of an ambitious 50-date farewell UK tour before walking off into the sunset (with his lucrative publishing catalog), having secured the bag, solidifying his triumphant destiny.  Jackson's legacy is unprecedented. His gravitational reach far.  Tap dance icons Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly---members of the Lost Generation and the Greatest Generation demographic born before the advent...

Forty-five years ago, Michael Jackson's "Off The Wall" was released to critical and commercial acclaim. Jackson's breakthrough album solidified the singer's transition from child star to adult entertainer.  Let the madness in the music get to you..... I remember the time so very well because it was when I emerged from off the wall: a ten-year-old moving from music spectator to consumer. Since there were  no younger acts back then, every kid my age was drawn to music made by adults ten, twenty, and nearly thirty years older.  It was heady time.  From around '74 to '79, my life played out to a soundtrack that was one long musical highlight reel.  I wasn't buying music yet but it didn't stop me from reading about it or watching documentaries or television shows devoted to musical subjects.  As a toddler I was transfixed by Jackson Five album covers laying around the house. I can't remember when I first learned they were from my hometown of Gary, I...

  With Thom Bell's passing, another major player of the Philadelphia Soul family is gone. Having left an earthly footprint for eternity---I envision Bell ascending to an ancestral plane, reuniting with his departed comrades. His signature strings, French horns, sitars, and oboes trumpet his arrival.    My early memories of the legendary producer/arranger/singer/songwriter were ignited by his peculiar-looking first name--- Thom:  a cross between a West Indian spelling and an antiquated abbreviation of his birth name. (For years I called him  Th- om as in the word “thumb”).  I remember my mother's recollection of my little sister’s infatuation with "Rock and Roll Baby"----a Bell-produced joyful romp about a precocious child prodigy from “Bluefield, West Virginia” in "doodle-white shoes" who "never sang out of tune."   Even as a seven-year-old in 1976, I was keenly aware of Bell's music. As a second grader, I proudly recited (to say I sang it woul...

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